American paediatric cardiologist, born October 28, 1921, Burlington, Vermont.

Dr Noonan is a paediatric cardiologist and paediatrician, who qualified in Boston in 1956.

When she subsequently began work at the University of Iowa as their first paediatric cardiologist, she became interested in why some children had congenital heart disease and other abnormalities that may occur with it. She studied 833 patients at the congenital heart disease clinic, looking for other congenital abnormalities, and in 1962 presented a paper:

"Associated non-cardiac malformations in children with congenital heart disease".

This described 9 children who in addition to congenital heart disease had characteristic faces, chest deformities and short stature. Both males and females were found to be similarly affected, and the chromosomes were apparently 'normal'.

It was Dr John Opek, an ex-student of Dr Noonan, who first began to call the condition "Noonan Syndrome" when he saw children who looked like those whom Dr Noonan had described. Dr Noonan later produced a paper entitled "Hypertelorism with Turner Phenotype", and in 1971 at the Symposium of Cardiovascular defects, the name 'Noonan Syndrome' became officially recognised.